Let the market correct itself

Everybody is charting job growth and foreclosures. While many analysts say job creation is the primary driver of home sales, the hole that's been dug by bad loans is too deep to be offset by a modest rise in future employment.

The reality is more foreclosures than ever are scheduled for 2010. What can be done about it?

A decade of cheap money and incredibly flexible loan programs offered by many lenders sparked overbuilding by developers, a flip-and-run mindset for speculators and unrealistic expectations for first-time homebuyers blinded by the low payments of a short-term loan.

According to Edward Pinto, a consultant to the mortgage-finance industry and former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae, the over-stimulus provided by Fannie, Freddie, the Federal Housing Administration and the Community Reinvestment Act created the housing boom that went bust.

The response to the bust has been to provide yet more stimuli that are serving to delay the market-clearing process. The "market-clearing process" means allowing the traditional housing forces to return to the scene.

Just what are traditional housing forces? In a nutshell, it means skin in the game: make certain that those who can truly qualify to buy a home are also able to produce a downpayment and an income that will allow the repayment of the mortgage, taxes, insurance and monthly essentials.

"All we are doing is kicking the can down the street," Pinto said. "The loan modification programs that were designed to help people stay in their homes have been abject failures. The recent Treasury action lifting the capital support caps did not help. It cleared the decks to use Fannie and Freddie as an open vessel for whatever the administration wants."

What does all this mean? Basically, Pinto believes that the extra cash the government is tossing into the housing market is simply adding fuel to the fire by depressing prices while foreclosures continue to flood the market.

Pinto and others would halt all housing stimulus funds and take some basic steps to curtail foreclosures. The initial steps would be painful, but they believe they are critical to restore balance:

1. Separate those borrowers who are going to qualify at a lesser mortgage amount from those borrowers who will not qualify even at a lesser amount. For those who cannot qualify, lenders assist with rental subsidies for a specific time period in exchange for leaving the home in good condition.

Lenders also accept deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure whereby the borrower deeds the property back to the lender and avoids the foreclosure process.

2. Banks then chop down the loan amount and reduce the mortgage principal amount to at least 90 percent of loan-to-value. Affordable rates and terms are negotiated.

3. If the borrower accepts the reduced amount, he or she becomes personally responsible for the mortgage. The bank would have a "full recourse" loan, enabling it to seek the borrowers' other assets in the event of default. ...CONTINUED

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